Sanxingdui Culture (Bronze Age; China)

[Mighty_Emperor]

Unmasking Sanxingdui Ruins

http://www.chinaview.cn 2004-05-07 00:15:40


CHENGDU, May 6 (Xinhuanet) -- In an out-of-the-way area of southwest China not on the beaten path of most foreign tourists visiting the picturesque home of the giant panda, giant Buddha andTibetan people lies a little-known site that holds its own unique mystique.

Some 100 years ago, Sanxingdui in today's Sichuan Province hadn't seemed to anyone anything more than a typical rural area, and just 20 years ago its significance was not fully known. But when a farmer hollowing out a just-dug ditch in 1929 found some jade he unwittingly opened the door on an unknown culture between 3,000 to 5,000 years old.

Perhaps it's not so startling in itself that an accidental strike of the hoe would unearth ruins as new archeological sites from China's rich history are being discovered almost every day.

But what no one could have expected was that this particular discovery would rewrite Chinese history by unearthing a culture contemporary with the first civilizations of China but that had left no clues in historical records, that seemingly disappeared without a trace and which left artifacts never before discovered elsewhere in China.

The discovery of the jade, which the family thought to keep secret at first, later brought archeologists, though one of them have predicted in the 1930s that this might be the capital of the ancient Shu kingdom, they still might have been startled by another accidental discovery by workers at a brick factory in 1986.

Two sacrificial pits were filled with gold masks, bronze wares,jade tablets, elephant tusks and sacred trees - and they opened a world of mystery. The discovery pushed back the date of the bronzeage in China and yet the objects made are unlike any made in any other period of Chinese civilization with the creation of human-like figures and faces particularly unique.

They left experts asking what the purpose of the objects was, where the culture came from, why there was no mention of it in historical texts and how such an ancient culture, at the origin ofChinese civilization, could be so advanced.

Theories abound, but whatever the answer, the unique part-human,part-animal masks have become the symbol of Sanxingdui and of the mysterious culture. So recently the local government invited some foreign journalists to participate in the opening of the Sanxingdui International Mask Festival at the start of the May Dayholiday.

The area whose name means "three-star mounds" in English is not a place foreigners who aren't archeologists would know to visit and little is left for the common person to see of the actual ruins but some ancient objects and many reproductions showing off this advanced culture are on display in the local museum.

The more we learned about the mystery behind what was dug up, the more intriguing and important this site seemed. Many objects at first seem somewhat commonplace for old cultures until you realize that the people making these objects were those living at the beginning of Chinese civilization.

It is believed that Sanxingdui was capital of the ancient "Shu culture" of the Sichuan area, previously believed to be 3,000 years old. A metropolis of its time, covering about three square kilometers, Sanxingdui had highly developed agriculture, includingwinemaking ability, ceramic technology and sacrificial tools and mining was commonplace.

This discovery enables an overall picture of early society, which had diverse origins in China, and perhaps somewhat a rethinkof just how "primitive" a primitive culture was.

But it is perhaps the mystery that is the biggest draw of this culture, at least for many foreigners. Still today little is knownabout it. There is no clue where the culture came from and no cluewhere it went. Nothing is known about these masks and statues but there is much educated guessing.

It is easy to guess that these items were used as religious objects. How they were used exactly is anyone's guess but a museumguide pointed out that it was common for ancient cultures to use religion as a form of power - to use fear to control the people.The masks may have been made in such a strange form so as to both inspire awe and encourage people to feel protected from evil.

But still, as these types of objects were not found in other cultures of the same era, Sanxingdui seems to stand out as a theocracy-tinted power where statues ruled the mortal and spiritual world. Museum signs noted that sorcerers and politicianswould pretend to be gods and rule in this way, perhaps using the masks and statues in some way to accomplish the deception.

The "mystery of the masks" and the strange figures produced by this civilization has even spread as far as UFO and paranormal websites who picked up on a People's Daily article mentioning speculation that aliens might be the answer and quoting locals in the area as having said they spotted UFOs in the area some 20 years ago.

The facial features and big nose of the masks with animal ears could even leave one wondering whether foreigners were involved. And there are those who still wonder about the authenticity of the findings.

Whatever the truth, the Sanxingdui ruins provide plenty of roomfor discovery by archeologists and for imagination by we average people. And in that knowledge that there is still much we don't have the answers to about history and our ancestors, perhaps lies part of the charm.

It's not too late to visit the Sanxingdui International Mask Festival and these ancient ruins, fast becoming one of the top-promoted tourist sites in China. The festival is being held near Guanghan, only some 40 kilometers from Chengdu, capital of SichuanProvince, already a popular destination for those wishing to see the giant panda or Sichuan's beautiful spots. According to local officials, the festival lasts for 300 days from May 1.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/07/content_1454860.htm

 

[EnolaGaia]

This 2014 Live Science article discusses the archaeological interest in the Sanxingdui city and culture, as well as the mystery of their disappearance 2,800 - 3,000 years ago.

Mystery of Ancient Chinese Civilization's Disappearance Explained

An earthquake nearly 3,000 years ago may be the culprit in the mysterious disappearance of one of China's ancient civilizations, new research suggests.

The massive temblor may have caused catastrophic landslides, damming up the Sanxingdui culture's main water source and diverting it to a new location.

That, in turn, may have spurred the ancient Chinese culture to move closer to the new river flow, study co-author Niannian Fan, a river sciences researcher at Tsinghua University in Chengdu, China, said Dec. 18 at the 47th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. ...

In 1929, a peasant in Sichuan province uncovered jade and stone artifacts while repairing a sewage ditch located about 24 miles (40 kilometers) from Chengdu. But their significance wasn't understood until 1986, when archaeologists unearthed two pits of Bronze Age treasures, such as jades, about 100 elephant tusks and stunning 8-feet-high (2.4 meters) bronze sculptures that suggest an impressive technical ability that was present nowhere else in the world at the time, said Peter Keller, a geologist and president of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California ...

The treasures, which had been broken and buried as if they were sacrificed, came from a lost civilization, now known as the Sanxingdui, a walled city on the banks of the Minjiang River.

"It's a big mystery," said Keller, who was not involved in the current study.

Archaeologists now believe that the culture willfully dismantled itself sometime between 3,000 and 2,800 years ago, Fan said.

"The current explanations for why it disappeared are war and flood, but both are not very convincing," Fan told Live Science.

But about 14 years ago, archaeologists found the remains of another ancient city called Jinsha near Chengdu. The Jinsha site, though it contained none of the impressive bronzes of Sanxingdui, did have a gold crown with a similar engraved motif of fish, arrows and birds as a golden staff found at Sanxingdui, Keller said. That has led some scholars to believe that the people from Sanxingdui may have relocated to Jinsha.

But why has remained a mystery. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.livescience.com/49247-chinese-civilization-disappearance-explained.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

This new Smithsonian article updates the excavation work in progress and summarizes the extensive finds at the Sanxingdui site.

Trove of 13,000 Artifacts Sheds Light on Enigmatic Chinese Civilization

For hundreds of years, the Sanxingdui culture flourished in what is now southwest China, producing ornate bronze masks and precious wares before vanishing abruptly around 1100 or 1200 B.C.E.

Believed to be part of the broader Shu state, the civilization continues to fascinate more than 3,000 years after its demise. As state-run news agency Xinhua reports, a trove of 13,000 artifacts unearthed at the Sanxingdui Ruins site over the past two years is poised to offer new insights on the mysterious Bronze Age culture. Found in six sacrificial pits, according to China Daily’s Wang Kaihao, the cache includes 1,238 bronze wares, 543 gold artifacts and 565 jade objects. ...

No written records or human remains associated with the Sanxingdui survive today, reports Kathleen Magramo for CNN. But scholars generally agree that the culture was part of the kingdom of Shu, which thrived on the Chengdu Plain until its defeat by the state of Qin in 316 B.C.E. The exact reasons for the Sanxingdui’s decline are unknown, but theories abound, with earthquakes, war and flooding all proposed as possible explanations. Based on the discovery of similar artifacts at Jinsha, about 30 miles away from the Sanxingdui Ruins, some archaeologists argue that the Sanxingdui moved to Jinsha and rebuilt their community there.

Between 2020 and 2022, a renewed slate of excavations uncovered six additional pits at the Sanxingdui site. Last year, archaeologists revealed fragments of a gold mask, traces of silk, bronzeware adorned with depictions of animals, ivory carvings and other artifacts.

The current round of excavations is slated to conclude in October. As Ran tells the Global Times, “The number of unearthed cultural relics will keep increasing with further work.”

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...-on-enigmatic-chinese-civilization-180980254/